Drought relief efforts in East Africa have received a much-needed boost.

China has pledged to provide Kenya with food supplies for more than a million people, to help those affected by the devastating drought that has hit the East African country.

The drought been described as the worst drought to affect the Horn of Africa in over 60 years, with millions of people in the region facing acute food shortages.

In Kenya alone, around 2.7-million people are affected by food scarcity, mainly in the country’s arid north.

Last month Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought, a national disaster and appealed to donors for help.

Several Chinese companies have made individual donations to various communities in the country in recent weeks.

Now the Chinese government has signed a relief deal – worth around $23 million.

“The Chinese government would like to help the Kenyan people with emergency humanitarian food aid to combat the drought crisis. We will provide 2.2 billion shillings worth of rice which is about 21,000 metric tonnes,” Liu Xianfa, the Chinese Ambassador to Kenya said.

The emergency aid is due to arrive next month.

The food donation is enough to feed about 1.4 million people over a period of at least four weeks.